In recent years the use of mobile devices for wireless communication has become widespread. The rate of adoption of cellular phones, in particular, has been extremely high, and it is becoming rare to find someone who does not own one. When on the move in a vehicle such as a bus or train, mobile devices carried by passengers simultaneously handover from one radio communication base station to another radio communication base station. The number of devices involved in these simultaneous handovers is increasing with the increasing levels of adoption.
When many mobile devices simultaneously request handover to the same radio base station, a large load is temporarily placed on the base station and on higher position nodes.
According to a method disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. H11-46380, a base station correspondent communication device is provided in each vehicle. When n mobile stations inside the vehicle output position registration requests, the base station correspondent communication device executes the position registration operation as a representative for all n mobile stations. With this arrangement, the number of position registrations is reduced by a factor of 1/n.
According to another method disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-165272, communication terminals form groups through independent communication with one another. By having one communication terminal act as a representative for a plurality of communication terminals, which reduces the number of communication terminals effectively managed through a communication control device, the amount of processing required in the communication system is reduced. Each communication terminal includes a communication unit for transmitting and receiving information to and from other communication terminals without going through the communication control device. When predefined conditions on results of this transmission and reception are met, the communication terminals alter connection information, which allows communications and is stored in a service control device, via the connected communication control device.